


A Minor Inconvenience

by Kereea



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games)
Genre: Adventure, Complications, Gen, Saving the World, Science, de-age fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 16:57:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1395370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kereea/pseuds/Kereea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eggman has come up with the perfect way to stop the heroes from thwarting him: turn them into children! But if he thinks being all of nine years old is going to stop the likes of Sonic, Shadow, and the rest, he’s got another thing coming!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Minor Inconvenience

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this as sort of a turned-into-kids fic that's a bit of a deconstruction. Sure, it seems fun and such, but it does throw up a LOT of roadblock for Team Sonic and Team Dark as they try to defeat Eggman despite a rather major handipcap.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Sonic said, smirking. “We trashed bots, trashed the base, and now we found the secret lair. Good work for one day.”

“It would have been half a day if someone hadn’t gotten captured,” Shadow said, scanning the hallway.

“That wasn’t Talis’ fault, so shut it!” Sonic said.

“I meant when _you_ got nabbed by the giant wheel-robot, faker,” Shadow corrected.

“Really, boys?” Rouge sighed. “You want to do this now?”

“Yeah, come on, let’s just pound Eggman, Sonic!” Knuckles said.

“Affirmative. Eggman shall now be eliminated,” Omega agreed.

“Well, maybe not _that_ much of a pounding,” Amy muttered, edging away from the robot.

“Something seems weird, though,” Tails said. “Eggman knows how fast a lot of us are. He usually sets up more than just what we’ve seen today.”

“What are you saying, Tails? That we missed something?” Sonic asked before the walls started glowing. “Oh _man_.”

“Run!” Shadow shouted. Sonic nabbed Knuckles and Shadow grabbed Rouge as they, Omega, and Amy took off running, Tails flying close behind

“What, the hall’s going to zap us?” Sonic asked.

The end of the hall was suddenly blocked by a force field.

“Exactly!” Dr. Eggman said, appearing on a view screen. “You know, _kids_ , it’s been fun, really, but I’m getting quite sick of you stopping me.”

“You could always try _not being evil_ for once!” Tails shouted.

“QUIET! I am _gloating_!” Eggman yelled back. “You see, I was so upset after my latest defeat-”

“Too bad,” Sonic said.

“-and I asked myself ‘Dr. Eggman, whatever are you doing wrong? Surely one so handsome and brilliant can find the answer!’ And then-”

“You realized the answer was _everything_?” Shadow asked, looking for a good place to aim a Chaos Spear before they were attacked by whatever the hallway would do.

“-I realized you all were the real problem! The _wrenches_ in my gears! Especially you, Sonic! You never just leave me alone!”

“Kind of my job, by now,” Sonic said cockily.

“Omega, stop, it’s a…television,” Rouge groaned as Omega fired a missile into the screen. “Really?”

“Oh. Error. My error,” Omega apologized weakly.

“Well, too bad! I still have speakers!” Eggman laughed. “So I figured out the best way to stop you from stopping me…was to make it so you _couldn’t_ stop me from destroying you!”

“Say what?” Sonic asked before the hallway’s odd lights became blindingly bright, and all the animals passed out.

.o.o.o.

“Message. Shadow. Wake up. Now.”

Shadow snarled. “What hit me?”

“Unknown beams from multiple emitter points struck all of us,” Omega relayed. “You seemed to be waking up first and so I concentrated my efforts on rousing you.”

“So, what, the beams not affect robots?” Shadow asked, rubbing his head.

“Affirmative. I do not have a prior age to regress to.”

“ _What_?” Shadow shouted, jumping to his feet. Or, more accurately, trying to jump to his feet only to slip due to his legs being too short for that to work. “But…I…I don’t either!”

“Yes. This is cause for concern,” Omega agreed.

“And how did our clothes shrink with us, anyway?” Shadow asked, eyeing his hover shoes. They had to have shrunk, since they still fit on much-smaller feet.

“I did not understand it myself,” Omega admitted as Tails woke up and yelped upon seeing everyone.

“AAAAAHHHHH!”

“Great, my head really needed this,” Shadow huffed, rubbing his temples.

Tails’ cry thankfully woke the others.

“You’re tiny!” Knuckles told Sonic.

“So are you, stupid!” Sonic shot back, sticking out his tongue.

“Rouge, are your wings all right?” Amy asked.

“What? Oh, no, this is right for a younger bat,” Rouge assured the younger girl as she patted her proportionately-smaller wings.

“Clearly Eggman intends to stop you from stopping him by regressing you to children,” Omega said.

“Oh, come on! Tails has been kicking Eggman’s butt since he was seven!” Sonic said proudly. “And…you look older than seven. And so do I.”

“I think I’m nine again,” Tails said. “It looks like instead of regressing us a certain number of years, Eggman simply turned us into how we were when we were nine. Omega wasn’t affected because he’s a robot.”

“But…then why was I affected?” Shadow asked. “Physically I’ve been the exact same age since I was created. Two days, nine years, over fifty years, it was all the same. I shouldn’t _have_ a younger form to regress _to_.”

“Eggman’s intention was to incapacitate,” Omega said. “Thus disorientating the Ultimate Lifeform would be better than leaving him in top form.”

“Well, yeah, but Shadow has a point in the whole ‘how’ question,” Tails said. “He literally doesn’t have a nine year old body he should have turned into. So I’m thinking it wasn’t _just_ a de-age ray.”

“Think you can undo it?” Amy asked.

“Sure, give me a few minutes to study it and we’ll be right as rain!” Tails said.

The speakers crackled to life, “Thank you, Miles Prower. By deciding to study the ray, you have activated Dr. Eggman’s self-destruct mechanism. Twenty. Nineteen.”

“Run! Again!” Sonic shouted.

“Omega, carry Rouge, Knuckles, Rose, and Tails!” Shadow ordered.

“Affirmative,” the robot said, following the blue and black hedgehogs.

“Dang it! I’m slower than usual!” Sonic hissed angrily.

“You. Are. _Nine_!” Shadow argued. “You’ve mentioned being slower as a kid! Deal with it!”

“I am capable of carrying you both, Shadow,” Omega said.

“I don’t need to be carried!” Sonic snapped.

“Shut! Up!” Shadow hissed, rubbing his temples again.

“Uh…Shadow? You okay?” Tails asked.

“My head’s killing me. Those lights were that damn bright, I guess,” Shadow huffed.

“…I don’t have a headache,” Amy said. “Rouge? Knuckles?”

“Good,” the echidna grunted.

“Fine,” the bat agreed worriedly. “Shadow, maybe you should let Omega grab you so we can give you the once over, especially since we don’t really know what the ray did to you.”

“I’m fine. It’s a headache,” Shadow said.

“There’s the way out!” Sonic said, pointing at the door.

“One. Have a lovely demise!” the speakers said as the hallway exploded.

.o.o.o.

Tails found himself wedged between Rouge and Amy under a pile of rocks. Omega was directly above them, apparently having taken the brunt of the building collapse.

“Tails, you up?” A small spiked glove slid under Omega’s arm. “Over here, man!”

Tails managed to kick his foot into Knuckles’ hand, and was hauled out into sunlight.

“Okay, I’m going to get Amy and Rouge,” the echidna said. “Sonic, see anything yet?”

“Nope,” Sonic said. He was standing on a rock, peering through the ruins.

Tails saw Shadow sitting off to the side, still rubbing his head. “He, Shadow, do you think Omega’s offline?”

“Sleep mode. He was bored not moving and I had told him to hold still until you three were out so nothing crushed you,” Shadow said.

“Still have that headache?” Tails asked.

“It’s…gotten better,” Shadow huffed. Going by how much he was rubbing his head, he was lying.

“So, first Eggman turns us into kids. Then he rigs the hallway to blow up before Tails figures out the machine to turn us back,” Sonic counted off on his fingers. “And now we know he has a bigger plan, and this was just a way to slow us down from stopping it.”

“Somebody get Amy,” Knuckles said. Tails hurried over and pulled the pink hedgehog free before Knuckles scrambled back out of the hole with Rouge.

“Oi, Omega, you can wake up now!” Sonic yelled.

Shadow threw a rock at him.

“Ow! Hey!” the blue hedgehog huffed. His eyes widened. “Oh. Right. Headache.”

Shadow nodded and shut his eyes again.

Rouge stirred, “Oh, great. Not just a dream then.”

“No,” Shadow said.

“Is he all right?” she asked Tails.

“I’m getting worried about that headache,” Tails admitted. “Shadow’s usually impervious to physical ailments, and a migraine that’s been going on this long can’t be a good sign. We should get back to my workshop, I have some equipment there that could scan him to find out what’s going on.”

“...You scan people for headaches?” Rouge asked.

“No, for abnormalities,” Tails said.

“Never change, kiddo,” Rouge chuckled. “Omega, wake sequence!”

“Oh, you guys have to wake him up?” Sonic asked.

“If it’s going to be less than eight hours, yes,” Rouge said.

“So, what now?” Knuckles asked.

“I’m with Tails. We should get back to his lab, see what he can do,” Sonic said. “If anyone can out-tinker Eggman, it’s Tails.”

“Thanks, Sonic,” Tails said.

“Hurry up, Omega,” Shadow grumbled.

“Back online,” Omega said, standing and letting the rubble just fall off him.

“Great…now what?” Amy yawned widely as she woke up.

“We need to get to my lab. Omega, you remember where that is, right?”

“Affirmative,” Omega said. “The lab is preprogrammed into my GPS in case of emergencies requiring aid of the technological kind.”

“Really?” Tails asked.

“What, you think only Sonic knows you’re smart?” Rouge asked. “Omega ever starts malfunctioning in a way we can’t fix, we’re hauling him to you.”

“The lab is approximately two hours from here at my top speed,” Omega said.

“Which means only Shadow and Sonic would be running and Omega would have to carry the rest of us,” Knuckles surmised.

“Right,” Rouge agreed.

“Um, we might want to do that now!” Sonic yelped, pointing.

“Oh come on, he blows up the base _and_ had robots in case we survived?” Knuckles asked.

“To be fair, we usually survive when Eggman does things like blow up a base,” Amy said.

“Omega, roast them!” Shadow said.

“Affirmative. Targets acquired,” Omega said, revealing some of his missiles. “Targets confirmed. Firing.”

Shadow clamped his hands over his ears as the missiles hit their targets.

“Grab the non-runners and let’s go!” Sonic said. Omega huffed but did as requested as Shadow managed to get up and rush after Sonic.

“So what’s the plan? Just run to the workshop?” Amy asked.

“It’s all we’ve got. Eggman tossed us a serious setback if we have to fight him like this,” Sonic said. “I’m not even sure I could use my spin-dash right right now, whoa!”

“Chaos Spear!” Shadow said, aiming at the new robots.

But instead of forming an arrow of energy, the spear seemed to pulse wildly before exploding in a burst of chaos energy as Shadow grabbed his head and dropped.

“Omega, grab Shadow!” Rouge said. “And shoot those bots!”

Omega tossed Shadow up to Amy and Tails before firing rapidly at the robots while Sonic ran in circles to kick up dust for cover.

“What happened?” Amy asked as Shadow sat up, rubbing his head again.

“I think his chaos energy is out of whack,” Tails said. “Remember, Shadow pretty much runs on the stuff. And he was made to be the age he was, _not_ nine. The alteration of his physical form could be having an adverse effect due to his abilities.”

“I know those rings of his act as power inhibitors, to help with control,” Rouge said. “Are they malfunctioning, maybe?”

“I can hear you,” Shadow grumbled.

“Good, then you can tell us, is your chaos energy going nuts?” Knuckles asked as Sonic lured a robot right into Omega’s line of fire.

“I wouldn’t know what that feels like!” Shadow protested.

“Okay, then that is our working hypothesis,” Tails declared. “So, yeah, no more chaos techniques until we know what’s going on.”

“So, what, we’re down one of our biggest guns?” Knuckles asked.

“Since when do _we_ count as part of your team?” Shadow huffed, pouting.

Knuckles stuffed a fist in his mouth, but failed at not laughing. Amy and Rouge both giggled. Tails grinned, Shadow looked so funny as a sulking kid.

“I’d say around when we agreed to team up to kick Eggman’s butt,” Amy said after she regained her composure.

“So…the rings, then?” Tails asked as the robots were defeated and Sonic and Omega took off again.

“I think they’re working,” Shadow said with a shrug. “I mean, I don’t really notice when I have them on since I typically wear them at all times.”

“Hmm…maybe we should take one off?” Knuckles asked, going for Shadow’s left ankle.

Rouge socked him, “You idiot, that might make things worse!”

“What is our objective upon reaching the workshop?” Omega asked.

“To go in and see what Tails can fix,” Sonic said. “So we can get back to beating Eggman!”

“The annihilation of Eggman’s plans is always preferred,” Omega agreed.

“I don’t know, maybe we should take Shadow to a doctor,” Knuckles said.

“I really doubt any doctor would know what the heck was going on,” Rouge sighed.

“Once again, I can _hear you_ and participate in his conversation,” Shadow growled.

“I notice no one here is speaking in a manner similar to a nine year old animal,” Omega noted.

“Huh…he’s right. Then again, I remember all the stuff I did after being nine, so I guess our minds weren’t rewritten or something,” Sonic said.

“No necessarily,” Tails said. “While we have all the knowledge we have at our older ages, we still probably have the physical brain makeups of children. So that could affect things like our abilities to make decisions, prioritize, and-”

“Hey, a chili dog stand!” Sonic cheered as they reached a small town.

“-focus,” Tails groaned as Sonic raced off.


End file.
